Housework doesn't always equal drudgery!

We all have to do it....HOUSEWORK. Housework and cleaning used to be two of my most dreaded things to do around here. I used to try to do everything in one day, and then announce to anyone who might be listening, that the housework was done. Well, after that drudgery for a few years, I finally got smart and realized that housework was not a job that gets done and that's it...it's an ongoing MAINTENANCE activity and once I approached it as such, I realized it would be so much easier and stress free, and I wouldn't waste a whole day cleaning and running around the house like some deranged maniac!

So, I came up with a schedule...we manage our jobs as a schedule...why not housework? I sat down and wrote down each individual task, such as cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting and the like. I wanted to get an idea of exactly what needed to get done every week.

Once you identify those individual tasks, write up a weekly schedule. Mine ended up looking like this:

• Monday: Clean bathrooms/Check pool filters and chemicals
  

• Tuesday: Update finances on computer/Sort through paperwork and files
  

• Wednesday: Vacuum/Dust/Put out trash
  

• Thursday: Mop/Clean kitchen counters
  

• Friday: Tidy up garage/Sweep entryway
  

• Saturday: Mow lawn and weed (can interchange with Friday if you have things planned today)
  

• Sunday: No work (or if you didn't get something done during the week, do it this day)

I also then write up a monthly schedule, bi-monthly, every other month, seasonal and yearly to cover everything else such as changing furnace filters, tidying up the basement, dusting ceiling fans, cleaning out the refrigerator and other activities that don't need to be done every week. Thank God, right?

As far as laundry, the best way to handle that is to do laundry every few days. That way you are not wasting hours of your time doing 20 loads of laundry on the weekends! For a family of four, I do laundry every three days. When the kids and our laundry hampers are half-full, I have the kids bring it down and sort the laundry into light and dark (we have another two bins right by the washer). This is my signal to start washing.

I also don't like to have a specific day for grocery shopping. I do buy a lot of my staples in bulk, such as pasta and rice, as well as all of our paper and cleaning products. That really cuts down on the weekly purchases and stuff you put in your cart, plus it saves you money.

As you can see, you can really cut down on the stress level when it comes to housework. It is as much a MENTAL exercise as it is a physical one...get it in your mind that housework is just a day to day thing that takes only a few minutes a day.....okay, it does depend on what you are doing (mowing the lawn takes me two hours!)...but the point I am trying to make is that if you follow this system, you will suddenly see your everyday household stress melt away! Let me know how it works out, and if you have any other ideas to share, let's hear em!

This article and others like it can be found at the "Carnival of Family Life" Edition posted on "An Island Life" Blog.